The Angel of Death Read Free Page A

soft Irish lilt. “I told him you’d call. Don’t forget.”

    “I won’t.”

    Cameryn looked at the row of flowers her grandmother had brought in from outside in order to nurse them through the winter, confined in their pots but secure from the elements. Cammie had always felt safe in this kitchen, in this house, in this life. Her grandmother was the only mother she had ever known, a woman as solid and rooted as Ireland’s native alder trees.

    Mammaw hesitated. “I’m not meaning to press, but I want to know if you’re tense because of your mother.”

    “Mammaw! ”

    “No, no, hear me out. To have her burst into your life only to disappear again—well, it’s a lot for anyone to bear. Your father and I are worried. It’s only been a month since you got the letter and—the nerve of the woman, begging you to call her on a telephone number that was no good. I can’t help but think it’s heavy on your mind.”

    “I already told you I’m over it, Mammaw. I called, Hannah’s number was disconnected, and that’s it. End of story.”

    “You’re sure?”

    “Yes.”

    Her mammaw smiled and shaped the dough. The news that Hannah had slipped away again confirmed everything Mammaw had always suspected about her daughter-in-law, and she’d wasted no time in telling Cameryn exactly what she thought. “I’m sorry for your pain, Cammie,” she’d said. “But hard truths are better when you take them straight. Your mother said she wanted contact with you, but clearly she wasn’t ready. And I have to admit I’m relieved. So’s your father. It’s a romantic thing, thinking about a lost mother rising up like the dead, but Cammie, Hannah’s never been a well woman. It’s better if she stays away. It really is.”

    With unerring instinct, Cameryn had surmised exactly what her father and grandmother wanted from her. They wanted her life—the lives of all three of them—to stay just as they were, to go on in their rhythms. There had been a shock, yes, but Hannah had disappeared once more and life could go on as it always had.

    Yet when the call had come for Cameryn at the Grand Hotel and she had listened to her mother’s breathy voice, she’d made a decision of her own. To give herself the time she needed to sort out everything, she would keep this new contact with Hannah a secret. The roles had been ironically reversed: now it was Cameryn who knew what her father and grandmother did not know. It wasn’t payback, exactly. More like justice.

    “What are you thinking about, girl? What’s spinning inside that head?”

    Cameryn looked up. She blinked, then said, “Nothing.”

    Her mammaw sighed. “All right. I can’t reach in and pull out your thoughts. So while you’re thinking about nothing, there’s some laundry of yours that needs to be folded. I left the basket in your room. I also noticed your bed wasn’t made.”

    Raising her hands in mock surrender, Cameryn cried, “Okay, okay, I’m going. Bed made, clothes folded. I got it.”

    “I’ll make you something to eat when you’re ready,” Mammaw called as Cameryn hurried up the narrow stairway.

    In her bedroom, her bed lay rumpled. It had once held a canopy, but she’d long ago taken off the top so that the bedposts stood bare, rising like steepled spires toward the ceiling. Leaping onto the middle of her bed on top of a mound of blankets, she began to fold her clothes, enjoying the small static sparks as she pulled her things apart. When she had a stack of underwear, she crossed over to her dresser and opened the drawer.

    And there it was. Beneath the lacy bras, she saw the edge of a wooden picture frame, painted deep violet. She shoved the bras aside and lifted the picture.

    The dreamy watercolor painting was evidence that her entire life had been built on a lie. That wasn’t exactly right, but that was how she felt. Both her grandmother and her father had lied to her. Not the deliberate lies she’d learned about in church,